Nov. 21, 2018, 9:03 a.m.

A coalition of bail bond industry groups took a major step Tuesday toward blocking California’s historic overhaul of the bail system, submitting more than enough signatures required for a statewide referendum on the law in 2020.

Nov. 20, 2018, 1:38 p.m.

California state Sen. Roderick Wright in court in 2014 while on trial on charges he lied about living in his district. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday paved the way for Gov. Jerry Brown to consider a pardon for former state Sen. Roderick Wright, who resigned after he was convicted in 2014 on felony charges of lying about living in his district.

The court recommended that the governor grant a pardon, according to Jorge E. Navarrete, the clerk of the court. Brown’s office has signaled he is likely to grant clemency in the case before he leaves office in January.

“As the Board of Parole Hearings has found, Sen. Wright's application presents a favorable case for a pardon,” Peter A. Krause, the governor’s legal affairs secretary, said in a letter to the court last month.

Cal Fire officials said Tuesday that $589.7 million has been paid out by the state’s fire emergency, or “e-fund,” account since July 1. Officials are poised to free up additional dollars before lawmakers consider a new state budget early next year.

Cal Fire officials said battling the Camp fire, which has killed 79 people and burned more than 151,000 acres across Butte County, has cost more than $68 million. The state’s response to the Woolsey fire, which has burned almost 97,000 acres in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and killed at least three people, has cost more than $50 million.

Nov. 20, 2018, 9:34 a.m.

California must significantly increase the money it spends on child care, food assistance and other social services — by as much as $1.6 billion in the first year alone — to narrow an income divide that has left almost 2 million children living below the poverty line, a new state task force said Monday.

Nov. 19, 2018, 4:42 p.m.

Three prisoners in the north segregation unit of death row at San Quentin State Prison. (Eric Risberg/AP)

Members of Catholic organizations and other anti-death penalty groups on Monday urged Gov. Jerry Brown to place a moratorium on the death penalty or commute the sentences of all California death row inmates, saying he should take a moral stand on a practice that costs the state money without making people safer.

Their request was echoed in more than 6,000 letters and petitions collected from residents and wheeled to the state Capitol in plain, white cardboard boxes. It comes more than a year after the California Supreme Court kept in place a 2016 measure passed by voters to speed up executions.

Standing outside the governor’s office, Marciano Avilla said Brown had a bold chance to move the state into the future, as he had on so many other issues, before leaving his post in January.

Nov. 19, 2018, 3:45 p.m.

The California Supreme Court refused on Monday to block counties from accepting late absentee ballot signatures, a practice election officials have said isn’t explicitly banned under a new state law.

The court denied the petition filed by Brian Harrington, a San Diego resident and campaign consultant to a Republican running for an Orange County Assembly seat. Harrington challenged a Nov. 13 legal advisory from the California secretary of state’s chief counsel that extended the length of time for voters to submit their signature if failing to sign the absentee ballot envelope.

Nov. 19, 2018, 12:11 p.m.

Vote by mail ballots are sorted by staff to be counted at the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder's office on Nov. 7 in Norwalk. (Patrick T. Fallon / For the Los Angeles Times)

Earlier this month, Californians voted to support $6 billion in new bonds to help build low-income and homeless housing across the state and provide home loans to veterans. Voters also rejected efforts to expand rent control and add property tax breaks for homeowners 55 or older.

Nov. 18, 2018, 9:10 a.m.

Gil Cisneros defeated Republican Young Kim on Saturday in the last of Orange County’s undecided House races, giving Democrats a clean sweep of the state’s six most fiercely fought congressional contests and marking an epochal shift in a region long synonymous with political conservatism.

Nov. 17, 2018, 1:04 p.m.

Tony Thurmond, a Bay Area assemblyman, was elected to serve as California's next superintendent of public instruction. (Los Angeles Times)

Tony Thurmond, a Bay Area Democrat who served in the state Assembly and as a local school board member, declared victory on Saturday in the bitterly contested and expensive race for California superintendent of public instruction.

Thurmond’s opponent, charter school executive Marshall Tuck, conceded the race after several days of late vote counting continued to widen the gap between the two candidates. Tuck had been ahead in early returns on election night but lost the lead last weekend.

“I want to thank the voters of California for electing me to serve the 6 million students of California,” Thurmond said in a written statement. “I intend to be a champion of public schools and a Superintendent for all California students.”